As a college student, we blow money pretty quickly, and honestly, most of the time it's on that last round of tequila shots that cost us $15 each that landed our face in the toilet. Anyhow, as college students return home for the long awaited summer vacation, many turn to serving in a restaurant as their summer job to rack in money to save for the excursions of the upcoming semester. However… working in a restaurant has many ups and downs. Here are 10 struggles about working in a restaurant.
1. Being double and triple sat in your section during a rush
Meanwhile, you're getting coffee for one table, still need soups or salads for the second, and the third table is staring you down because you're about 5 minutes late on picking up their dinner... but yeah its cool fill my station.
2. Getting stuck serving Sunday morning breakfast
If you're a server and are able to escape the catastrophe that is Sunday morning breakfast... those that cannot envy you. I have yet to meet a server that actually finds joy in serving Sunday morning breakfast. Rude, hungry, and demanding people who haven't had their coffee yet are not my thing on top of trying to decipher over easy eggs from over medium when picking up.
3. The hours of 1-5
For many servers, these are the hours that we will stand around and probably eat massive amounts of food out of boredom, and if were lucky, get sat a maximum of 3 tables during the course of 4 hours.
4. The extremely needy table
We all HATE those tables that stare at us from across the entire restaurant just for a napkin, or the table that every time you walk away they scream "excuse me, I need..." that makes you scramble to accommodate their needy desires. If you plan to go out to eat... try and cut your server some slack and ask for things at one time rather than every 5 minutes.
4. Social life
Unfortunately ... being a server in a restaurant has some crappy hours, and more times than not, you're going to miss beach trips, concerts, parties, and hitting the bar with your friends
5. Picky eaters
Understandably, not everyone is going to like every single item in every single dish. However, if you order a specialty salad and say, "But can I get no pepper, onion, croutons, eggs, cheese, carrots, and dressing on the side?", might as well just get lettuce.
6. Bad tippers
Servers don't expect a $10 or $20 tip from every table, but nothing is worse than serving a party of 5 appetizers, refilling drinks 5 times, getting soups and salads out, timing to pickup when the table is done said appetizers and soups so they don't feel rushed, box up their leftovers, AND serve dessert to get a measly $5.
8. Great tippers
On the flip side, there are those occasional parties that will tip you $20 or more on a simple check of eggs and bacon. At my restaurant, we have the famous "$100 tipper" who literally tips you $100.
9. Being hungry at work
At my job, we can either come in early to eat, or we have to wait until 8 p.m Monday through Thursday and 9 p.m. on the weekends to order. Working 10 hours of nothing but serving and smelling delicious entrees starts to get to you and your stomach will begin to growl uncontrollably. In this case, the only option is to steal a piece of bread, a single french fry, or, my personal favorite, shove about 5 saltine packs into your apron.10. Drama
No matter where you work, your bound to have work-related drama. When all the servers start getting tired and busy, things heat up. Whether it being over someone not refilling the bread drawer, how long the line to pick up is, or someone not doing their sidework, you're bound to overhear someone telling another server about something that just happened in a very big and dramatic way that could initiate E! to pick your resturant up for a reality TV show.
Despite all the struggles you endure throughout a single night, it's always sweet to go home with a nice wad of cash each night ontop of a decent paycheck at the end of the week.
